


at the end of the world

by pixelpop



Category: Greek Tragedy, Greek and Roman Mythology, Oedipus Cycle - Sophocles
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1930s, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Great Depression, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Suicide, a lot of fucked up shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 12:39:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3410945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixelpop/pseuds/pixelpop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's tying her noose when she remembers-</p><p>  <i>living is an awful affair, isn't it?</i></p><p>(Jocasta counts back all those years, trying to pinpoint when the world really started ending)</p>
            </blockquote>





	at the end of the world

**X.**

The first time Oedipus hits her he is drunk.

The year is 1929 and the economy has crashed, a drink in Oedipus’ hand so fast Jocasta didn’t even have time to protest.

She doesn’t remember exactly what she’d said— just that it had irritated him enough to lash out, a hand slapping her so hard she’d stumbled back into the kitchen with a hand clutched to the burning mark against her cheek.

“Don’t fucking talk back to me,” he mutters into his drink. “You know better.”

Whenever Laius touched her, everything went cold. Her skin, her hands, the very depths of her being frozen over, and now with Oedipus she feels like she’s burning. He scorches her, even when he hurts her, when the slap of his palm stings against her skin and she’s sure that she’s bruised.

She doesn’t care, just as long as she stops feeling cold.

 

**XI.**

Creon is a bastard.

He accuses Oedipus of murdering Laius— of being a sick, filthy bastard, and a countless number of other nameless atrocities. He throws a tantrum in the streets and engages in a wholehearted shouting match with Oedipus, each of them howling like children out for blood.

“Leave, then,” Oedipus spits. “Leave this town forever, and I’ll spare you.”

Creon watches, eyes trailing Jocasta as she slots herself into Oedipus’ side. _Make a choice,_ his eyes say. _Pick one of us._

Jocasta avoids his gaze, rubbing the tension out of Oedipus’ neck with a hand, and Creon shakes his head before turning back around towards his own house. His gait is obstructed with a limp, but she doesn’t bother asking Oedipus what went on.

Her brother is dead now, after all.

But Creon is not one for quiet goodbyes, never leaving without something else to say. While Oedipus is out at the church speaking with the priest that night, Creon slips into their home, suitcase in hand and his hat in the other. He is covered in the sand and dust, and looks sickly and unshaven.

Jocasta smokes a cigarette in the kitchen, back facing him as she hears his familiar footsteps falling hard on the linoleum. He reaches into the cupboard for a glass and ventures back into the living room for something in the liquor cabinet.

When he comes back Jocasta’s cigarette is half gone, and he’s sipping at something dark and strong.

“I came to say goodbye,” he says quietly. She notices in the dim lighting of the room that there’s a bruise on his cheekbone, flushed a dark purple and probably painful.

She doesn’t respond.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?”

“Once you apologize, yes.”

“For what?” he probably intended to sound more affronted, but it comes out tired and monotone. “Whatever it is, Jocasta, I’m sorry. I just want to say goodbye.”

She turns to look at him, cigarette burned down to the filter in her right hand, and shakes her head very slightly. “You’ve already said it.”

He abruptly slams his glass down on the counter, arms coming around to trap Jocasta against the edge of it, and leans forward. His breath ghosts the edge of her lips, thick and smelling heavily of liquor, and she just stares.

He rocks back a little on his heels, eyes searching her face, looking for something she’s not willing to give up. He’s just a little drunk— a lot exhausted, with bags bruised under his eyes and a lilt to his speech. Creon presses his lips together, and there’s a stifled moment where Jocasta is sure he’s going to kiss her.

_Give him three more seconds, and if he doesn’t, you leave._

She counts to five. On seven he pitches forward, but she swings out of the way, leaving him there in the open air as she slides out from his trap against the counter.

Something in him crumbles.

He doesn’t say anything when he leaves.

 

**III.**

There was a baby.

Jocasta remembers crying— crying for hours afterward as her mother tore the thing from her hands to pass it on to her brother, the baby still kicking and screaming with new life. “Bring it outside,” she said, “There’s a man there. Give it to him, and don’t say a word.”

“Where are you taking it?” she whimpered, and her mother smoothed out the hair on her brow. “What are you doing with it?”

“It’s nothing, Jocasta, nothing at all. Go to sleep, you need the rest.”

There was a baby.

 

**I.**

She was eleven and he was thirty-two.

Her eyes were such a striking green— almost otherworldly in their keen attentiveness to the rest of the world, mouth soft and inquisitive. The older brother was leagues ahead of her in height, a whole head taller at fifteen, and he never let the girl out of his sight. “Come on, Jo,” he’d say, tugging his sister along by the shoulder as she lingered in the back aisles of the corner store. “Mother said not to dawdle.”

And Jo watched that man at the counter, an odd look on his face as Creon attempted to pull her out the door. A hand came up to very quietly salute her in greeting, and Jo thought about it during the entire walk home.

“What did he say to you?”

“Pardon?” Jo looked up from the sewing in her hands, and her brother was pacing the floor of their sitting room. “I’m not sure I follow.”

“That man in the store. He must have said something to you, yes? He looks at you every time we go in there, but you’ve never said anything. What did he say?”

“He’s never spoken to me, Creon,” she let her eyes wander down to the needle and thread poised between her fingertips. “Why does it bother you so much?”

Something in his eyes flared, and he finally took a seat in one of the chairs opposite her, hands fiddling with the edges of the upholstery. “No reason,” he said, “I’m just not sure his intentions are entirely pure.”

Jo opened her mouth to respond, to object to the statement, but gasped instead as the point of her needle pricked the end of her finger. A very small bead of blood welled at the site of the injury, and just as Creon leapt from his chair to retrieve a cloth, it spilled over onto her embroidery, leaving a red flourish in the center of her needlework.

 _How very odd,_ she thought. _Maybe Creon is right._

 

**II.**

He never offered her a name, not once did he rightly tell her what to call him, only a muffled, “Just sir, if you may. I’m not one for titles.”

“You’re very pretty,” he told Jo on a sunny afternoon behind the corner store as she pumped water into the jug she was to bring back. Creon had stayed home to help father with some of the work on the land, and her mother had sent Jo down to the store with a small list and a jug for water. “Be home quickly, dear, it’s too hot to be out there for long,” her mother said.

“I am?” she paused enough to wipe sorely at the sweat beading at her brow. “A lot of the boys in school don’t take kindly to me. They say I speak too much.”

“Ah, but that’s what makes you better than the other girls your age. They like those other girls because they don’t speak enough, that they just let the conversation be held by the man. You, my dear, speak well enough for a man to not have to speak too much or too little,” he smiled at her, teeth catching his lower lip as she set down the filled water jug. “You’re a sweet girl, Jocasta.”

“Just call me Jo.”

“A little old for nicknames, yes?” he chuckled when she frowned. “Not that it’s a bad nickname, just maybe not appropriate for a young woman like you.”

“I’m only twelve,” she huffed, “Besides, no boy wants to call me _Jocasta._ ”

“I would,” he murmured. “I gladly would.”

Something deep in her stomach tightened when he looked at her that way, and Jo wasn’t sure if it was good or bad. A drop of sweat lazily slid down the side of her jaw, and she watched his eyes follow it.

“You look awfully hot,” he said, rising from where he was leaning against the side of the building. “Come inside a moment and cool off. Your mother must understand, yes?”

Her throat dried up with the air around her, and she simply nodded, grasping the cool, slippery handle of the water jug as she followed him inside.

“Don’t tell your mother,” he said. “But I’ll let you take all this for free, keep the money your mother gave you. And don’t go thanking me, it’s out of the goodness of my heart.”

“But sir—,” The air in the shop was musty and cool, and the man took the jug from her hands to set it on the counter beside all the things that were on the list she had been given.

“You’ll not be thanking me because you’re going to do me a favor in return,” he murmured, a smile catching at the corners of his mouth. That same dark, cold feeling in the pit of Jo’s stomach flared again, and suddenly all the saliva that had dried up in her mouth reappeared again.

“And what’s that?”

He chuckled, “Just promise you won’t tell your mother, __Jocasta_.” _

 

**IV.**

She was getting married.

Her eighteenth birthday had been three weeks prior— the engagement to her husband two weeks before that even. She had never met the man in her life, but her mother guaranteed that she would enjoy his company.

“A man of simple tastes,” she said, “He has far more money than any of us— you should feel lucky to have such a man to marry.”

“And does he have a name?”

“Laius,” her mother said, the name rolling off her tongue with ease, “His name is Laius.”

Jocasta had never seen him, never met him— the name seemed awfully familiar, but she didn’t dwell on it any more than she had to. He was wealthy, and that’s all that mattered.

Creon was furious.

“They’re making you marry some poor old widower just because he has money,” he bit out, buttoning up the cuffs of his shirt as Jocasta very gingerly applied makeup in her vanity mirror. The rouge on her lips reminded her quite strikingly of that drop of blood on her embroidery all those years ago, a day she rewinds in her head over and over again sometimes.

“I suppose I don’t mind,” she muttered, and turned to look at her brother, who was invariably struggling with the knot of his tie. “Come over here, would you? You’re going to drive me insane one of these days.”

“It’s not my fault I’m no good with my hands,” he grumbled in protest, but pulled up a chair to sit across from her so she could repair the damage that had been done. “I’m still angry though. I don’t want you to marry him.”

“And what can you do about it?” Jocasta muttered, the whisper of Creon’s tie sliding together covering the ends of her words. “We can’t _do_ anything.”

A small, almost unnoticeable gasp left Creon’s lips as Jocasta’s fingers brushed over the bare bit of skin at his throat, the tie knotted beautifully, but her gaze still caught where her hands lay.

“Who would you wish I marry then, Creon?” she asked, a needle of suspicion threading its way into her voice. “Who would suit you better?”

“No one,” he whispered, and tilted his head downward, blue eyes crisp as the ironed cuffs of his shirt. “No one is good enough for you.”

 _Maybe he’s right,_ Jocasta thought as she saw Laius for the first time, her heart seizing in her throat and the air slipping from her lungs. _Maybe I shouldn’t marry anyone._

 

**VI.**

Laius looked at her like she was broken— a toy that needed fixing, but was too much effort to do so.

 _You remember,_ she thought. _You remember breaking me, but you can’t admit it._

When he died, Jocasta wept. Not out of anguish, but relief.

 

**V.**

Creon was married three years after Jocasta at age twenty-four. Her name was Eurydice, and she was pale and willowy with vacant eyes and a trembling nature. Creon pretended she wasn’t there most of the time.

“Do you love him?” Creon asked one night, a glass of whiskey cupped into his palm and a cigarette hanging limply from his mouth. The hazy fog of nicotine hung thick around them, and Jocasta watched the tip of her own cigarette burn as she lit it.

“That’s a silly question.”

“I don’t think it is.”

“Your sense of humor is getting worse with age, Creon.”

He set his own cigarette down in the ashtray between them, fingers twitching over the ashes as he lifted his drink to his lips. The ice in the glass jingled abruptly as he set it back on the end table between them.

“He’s not awfully kind to you,” he muttered. “Almost pretends like you’re a ghost—just sort of there when he wants you, hanging around the house with nothing to do but to please him.”

“It’s not like that.”

“It damn well is,” his hand clapped down abruptly on the wood surface of the table, and the glass rattled with the force of it. “Does he even satisfy you? I mean, the least he could do is just—.”

“We’re done talking, Creon,” a chill so cold she actually shivered ran through Jocasta’s bones, and in a moment she was on her feet, crossing the room to lead Creon to the front door.

She could feel it— his eyes trailing behind her as she walked, an invisible claim stamped into her skin reading: _don’t touch, property of Creon._

 

**VII.**

Oedipus stormed into Jocasta’s life like the tail end of a hurricane.

He was tall and handsome— young, at that, with a dashing smile that could charm almost anyone —and Jocasta knew that she wanted him the second he walked into town.

Creon’s dislike for Laius so quickly slid into place for Oedipus, and it was then that Jocasta knew that it didn’t matter who she married because Creon would always hate them.

“You are blinded by his charms,” Creon is pacing the floor of their sitting room, a wild look in his eyes that could only have been brought on by alcohol— something Jocasta wonders how he could’ve acquired, but it isn't uncommon for moonshine to run wild in these towns. “He says witty things, talks you up, calls you doll and baby and you just run with it because Laius never said those things to you. He’s got you by the tail and you don’t even know it.”

“You are jealous of him.”

The silence is sudden and overwhelming as Creon comes to a screeching stop, feet bunching up the rug underneath him, and his hands trembling with something fierce.

“I am not _jealous_ of that _pig,_ ” he spits, venom leaking hard and fast into his voice. His shaking hands scramble desperately through his hair, eyes swimming with anger and distress. “He’s no good for you, Jo. He’s no good.”

“Don’t call me that,” the words break abruptly in her throat, and she can feel her insides curdling at the mention of the nickname. “Don’t ever call me that again.”

And Jocasta sees it in his eyes.

He understands.

 

**VIII.**

Their wedding is small but dazzling, and afterwards Oedipus murmurs compliments into her skin, burning her down to core with each _baby, darling,_ and _doll_ that falls out of his mouth _._

She thinks of Creon. She imagines his face, how distraught he was when she told him she was marrying Oedipus, how his face crumpled so delicately at the mention of the other man’s name. Oedipus is kissing her, and all she can think of is the scratch of Creon’s unshaven face instead of her husband’s clean shaven jaw.

Something is wrong.

 

**IX.**

Polynices is born and Jocasta is reminded of it, a day that will die without ever being spoken of.

She shows the baby to her brother, and it is obvious that he remembers as well.

They don’t speak of it.

 

**XII.**

The world is ending and it’s his fault.

Jocasta’s fingers tremble so hard she can barely tie the noose— a suicide knot made from the sheets of their bed, soft and smelling heavily of her perfume. Her tears have long dried, and there are tender, tacky tracks on her cheeks that she compulsively wipes at.

 _The world ended years ago,_ she thinks. _It ended when I had that baby.  
_

She kicks out the chair and remembers the smell of liquor on her brother's breath.


End file.
